


Surprise in Streetlight

by CelestialMechanism



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Juno is super good at rewriting history to suit his opinions, M/M, Spoilers for the end of season one, angsty with a light ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 14:42:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9128197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelestialMechanism/pseuds/CelestialMechanism
Summary: Ghosts have a funny way of popping up when you've finally been able to put them out of your mind. That's the funny thing about ghosts, though: they tend to haunt you for a reason.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Fandom game: take a shot every time someone says that peter abandoned Juno and not that juno left Peter first.

It feels like I’m looking at a ghost. Under a lamppost leans a man who looks so at home in his well-fitting suit among the polished streets of uptown Hyperion that I have to remind myself that he probably hasn’t been on-planet in almost a year. A fox’s grin tugs at his lips as if he just can’t help himself. From behind a pair of the biggest glasses I’ve ever seen, his bright eyes, untouched by the amused curve of his mouth, watch me intently. I know even without taking a step closer that he’s wearing a cologne that saturates not only the air around him, but also the brains of suckers who don’t have the good sense to run the other way as soon as they see him… Well, I’ve never really been the sensible type.

I size him up while sucking in air. I don’t know for sure if the shortness of breath is from the cold, from the fact that I just chased him down for four blocks, or from surprise, but it doesn’t matter because this has to be some sort of sick dream. It’s an elaborate one, I’ll give my subconscious that, but it feels all too unreal. I get called up a week ago about a robbery threat (though at the time I couldn’t imagine who’s stupid enough to threaten Marris O’Connor’s family when it’s a well known fact that the decorated General is always armed to the teeth with a home twice as guarded) and after staking the place out I should have figured that it would end face to face with Peter Nureyev. I continue to tell myself I’m dreaming even as a swipe of longing hits me so hard I have to catch my breath all over again. 

“Why, detective,” Nureyev purrs, “you really have let yourself go, hm? The Juno I knew could do at least five blocks before doubling over like that.” His voice is like one of those sugary cake toppers you only see when a party host really wants to show off: sweet enough to rot the teeth out of your mouth, and brittle, like a strong wind could knock it over and smash the delicate confectionary. 

I straighten up and square my shoulders. “Yeah. Thought I could afford to take it easy for a while after the whole ancient Martian fiasco. Abduction and death threats are only really fun if you space them out.” He doesn’t even twitch and I can’t tell if it’s an act or if he’s compartmentalized those weeks so efficiently that he isn’t even ruffled by the flippant remark. Hell, maybe he got over it. I move my stare from his face to the bag slung over his arm. “I’m going to need that back.” I don’t even bother mentioning the HCPD, knowing that it would be useless and that the thief would worm his way out whenever he pleased.

Nureyev looks down at the duffle like he’d forgotten that it was there, then slides it down his arm. “This trinket? I’m sure the General would hardly miss it, but if you insist.” He holds it out and I stride forward to grab it. It doesn’t matter what he took, it doesn’t even matter how he got in and out of O’Conner’s with all his limbs in tact. What suddenly does matter it the strong smell of another world that I had just walked right into, and the urge to grab him like his lapels to… 

I scowl at him, an expression I had practiced in the mirror to make sure that the eye patch didn’t detract. My grip tightens around the sack’s strap and I walk. One foot in front of the other, I walk away from Nureyev for what I try to hope will be the last time; I don’t think I could stand to do it again.

No dice; he’s on my heels in a second and for a long time we slink away from the mansions of uptown like whispers on the breeze. I know full well that he would go away if I could just get up the nerve to tell him but I also know that I wouldn’t mean it enough. Letting _that_ particular old wound bleed like new is a hell of a lot easier than applying pressure, which is how I rationalize letting him follow me into the office.

“What are you playing at, Nureyev?” I finally round on him after the bag of O’Conner’s possessions is stuffed in the safe. I know that if Peter really wants it there’s not stopping him, but knowing that I’ve done at least one thing right all night makes me feel less like I’m about to jump out of my skin. 

He’s standing on the other side of the desk, arms crossed over his chest. I keep my eye on him. This close, the fractional movements are clear on his face. His eyes widen, eyebrows rise, all little changes that I couldn’t have seen out in the night. The fact that his composure falters even a little to reveal those details proves that he’s taken aback by the question. He sounds all too honest when he says, “I don’t know what you mean.” I almost believe that it’s the truth, but then remember that this is a man who slips into a new lie every morning. How can you trust someone like that not to be toying with you? Once, I could have- _did_ trust him. Now… I couldn’t be sure.

“You do know what I mean. You sit back, pull the strings God knows how, and here we are. What I want to know is what exactly you think you’re doing back in my city. You can’t just jump in and out whenever you want; I’m not one of your play-things. I have the right to be suspicious because there’s always some catch with you.”

He laughs without humour. “It’s no game, I can promise you that.”

"Not a game? Please, _everything_ is a game with you."

"Well then, detective, I had expected you of all people to understand just how serious I can be. I suppose I was giving you more credit than was due."

"Hey, at least I'm consistent here-“

Nureyev scoffs loudly, cutting me off mid-accusation. "Consistent? _Surely_ you're joking."

"Like hell I'm joking." I slam my fist down against the desk between us, absolutely sick of Nureyev messing with my head at every turn. "I haven't changed one bit since the day you met me, but you keep putting on a new skin like it’s some party trick. Look at Nureyev — or Glass, or whoever else you are today — he can pull four new identities from thin air! Watch him juggle them all at once! Well I'm done with _that_ charade."

The silence in the office is so dense that a butter knife just wouldn’t do the job. Nureyev has something I can’t quite pin on his face — a mixture of amusement and exasperation that I don’t like one bit. He quirks an eyebrow upwards another millimetre. To an untrained eye he would look hardly ruffled, but his distaste shows in the slight twitching of his fingers against his crossed arms. “If I had to describe one of us as capricious, it would be you.”

The anger is chased from my body by a strong tide of confusion, and it must show on my face because Nureyev’s aloof mask falls and he pinches the bridge of his nose. His glasses edge up into his hair but he hardly seems to notice. "Juno, dear, you really are dense," he finally sighs, “and usually I would ascribe it to be part of your charm, but since you are so spectacularly missing the point I’ll spell it out for you. Despite the fact that I, as you very well know, act in my own self interest, I have offered time and time again for you to join me. You knew this whole time that I wasn’t going to stay on Mars; at least not without a very tempting invitation–” 

“So I wasn’t enough of an offer for you? Jesus, you think a guy loves you and then-”

“You never asked! Juno, listen to yourself! Consistent; as if. You ask me to stay, then turn me into the authorities. You say you’ll try to trust me and you go rooting through my coat pockets. You fight to survive Miasma’s torture, nearly get yourself killed without hesitation, then I wake the morning after I tell you that I love you and where were you? I was exactly where you expected me to be, Juno. You are the one who put me behind you, not the other way around. The world isn’t out to do you wrong, you stubborn man!”

I’m glad that those bright eyes of his aren’t trained on me; I can’t stand for him to see me flinch. Part of me insists that he’s wrong, that I had never had a choice not to trust him. That’s quickly drowned out by a bigger part, the one laced with cynical logic and too many nights of regret. He’s right. Of course it’s all my own damn fault, but having someone else say it doesn’t mean that I’m any more keen on facing it now than I was all those months he was gone.

He’s knocked the fight out of me, but it takes a second longer to realize that Peter isn’t fighting either, only protecting himself from what I did. This isn’t the man I’d known who had all the answers, the one who made his own exit if one wasn’t presented. He isn’t a master criminal, or a failed revolutionary, or an act; he’s just a man. In the dim lighting his shoulders sag with exhaustion, the kind that had taken up residence in his bones when he hadn’t been looking. Slowly, I walk around the desk to rest a hand on his arm. He stiffens and doesn’t look up.

“Peter…” Whatever I say now has to be the right thing, but I’ve never known the right thing to say in my life. “Look… I know we can’t go back. I don’t think I’d want to even if we could. So why are you here, Peter?”

When he looks my way it’s almost hard to meet his eyes. “There was some unfinished business that I thought it was about time to wrap up.”

It hits me like a gunshot on my blind side and I can’t help the fit of laughter. Nureyev’s eyebrows draw together while he’s probably deciding whether to be more offended or alarmed. I can’t blame him, I’m a bit startled myself, but it just keeps coming. Peter must finally decid how he feels a few beats later because he huffs, “Honestly, Juno, I don’t see what’s so funny about all this,” indignantly. 

“Sorry- I’m-,” I gasp, starting to right myself. A few final chuckles slip and then I’m left clearing my throat in the awkward silence. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you robbed one of the most secure mansions in that part of Uptown and could have gotten yourself killed by a trigger-happy General or her seriously pissed off wife just to get my attention. That’s kind of excessive, even for you, don’t you think?”

If he finds it funny he doesn’t show it. “You’re insufferable. I don’t know why I bothered,” is what he says, but in his voice I can hear that times like this is exactly why he bothered. 

“How about a drink, then? I’ve been told that I’m easier to deal with when I’ve got some alcohol in me. Or maybe it’s easier when they’ve got some in them…” 

“Trying to get a man drunk without a proper date isn’t very lady-like or you but I suppose you do owe me that at least if not an explanation.”

I wave him to grab a seat while I grab a bottle of scotch from a drawer in my desk. “I’m sure you’d get whatever you came here no matter how this went.”

It goes like that for hours, conversation that is somehow easy despite the rift I’d put between us a year ago. The longer we talk the more I can see the hurt in him dulling around the edges. He talks about a couple of his heists – “Nothing nearly as interesting as the Utgard Express, mind you. Security these days really is lacking.” – and I tell him about a couple of cases. For once, instead of pounding back drink after drink, I forget about the glass in my hand, too caught up in Peter’s lilt and the way his eyes shine when he gets excited reminiscing. 

Before we know it the sun is peeking blue through the window and then the lock clicks at the front of the office. He freezes mid sentence and stares at my door, a barrier between us and –

“Boosssss? You in here? The lights are on so I know you must’a been in already. You betta’ not have been doin’ paper work all night ‘cause I know you were workin’ that case and you really oughta get some sleep –”

“Just a minute, Rita!” I holler through the door, then turn to a startled Nureyev. I pull him up off the couch and over to the window, which I open quickly. He looks at me sideways. “What are you waiting for? Get out.”

“As thrilling as it is to carry on a forbidden relationship like this, I’m failing to see the humour in shooing me out like this.”

“Well if you really want to deal with Rita first thing  –  ” That does the trick; he slips out onto the fire escape gracefully and then all that’s left of him in the office is an empty glass on the table, the faint scent of spices from some far away planet, and the fleeting feeling of his lips against mine as if he knew that that quick kiss was the first in a long line of them.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had the most of this sitting in my drafts without a conclusion for a couple of weeks so here we go. First person isn't my usual go-to but I wanted to give it a shot, not sure if it was a hit or a miss. You can find me any time at my tumblr [here](https://vfdbeatrice.tumblr.com) and I am always up for fic requests. If you liked this let me know, thanks!


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